Type with your eyes soon
dubai — Extra sensory perception has caused a fair amount of debate among scientists. Facebook senses there may be no need for further arguments thanks to the possibilities presented by its latest projects involving Augmented Reality.
The social networking giant, at its F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, unveiled a new technology that allows users to type words using brain waves. As an added bonus, they’re also developing a way for the human skin to recognise sound.
It may seem far-fetched, but Facebook is taking major steps to making it a reality. And if it does succeed, imagine the wonders it can do — for starters — for the world’s physically challenged peo- ple, specifically those who are unable to use their hands to type, and for the hearing impaired.
According to the World Heart Foundation, about 15 million people worldwide suffer strokes, with another five million left permanently disabled. Stroke is the sec- ond leading cause of paralysis, behind only dementia.
“Speech is essentially a compression algorithm, and a lousy one at that,” Facebook executive and former DARPA director
Regina Dugan told a packed audience at the Silicon Valley event. “That is why we love great writers and poets, because they are just a little bit better at compressing the fullness of a thought into words. What if we could type directly from our brain into a computer?”
The project grew from being an idea six months ago to being the focus of a team of more than 60 scientists, engineers, and system integrators, according to Dugan, who heads a Building 8 team devoted to coming up with innovative hardware for the social network’s mission of connecting the world.
“We are just getting started,” Dugan said.
“We have a goal of creating a system capable of typing 100 words-per-minute straight from your brain.”
Video played during her presentation showed a woman with an advanced neurodegenerative disease using her mind to move a cursor on a computer screen, slowly typing words.
“We are talking about thoughts you want to share. Words you have decided to send to the speech center of the brain.”
Such technology could let people fire off text messages or emails by thinking, instead of needing to interrupt what they are doing to use smartphone touchscreens, for example.
It would also have the potential to capture concepts and semantics associated with words people are thinking, making language differences irrelevant by enabling sharing of what is in mind, Dugan said.
“Unlike other approaches, ours will be focused on developing a noninvasive system that could one day become a speech prosthetic for people with communication disorders or a new means for input to AR,” Dugan said in a post on her Facebook page, referring to augmented reality. — alvin@khaleejtimes.com
We are just getting started. We have a goal of creating a system capable of typing 100 words-per-minute straight from your brain Regina Dugan